Ideally the floor of a building is level, flat, and solid. However, sometimes a floor will develop localized sags, dips or weak spots. These may develop due to bad building materials, poor installation, or poor design of the floor. Sags, dips and weak spots may also develop over time as the construction materials age, warp, shrink or the like. Sags, dips, and weak spots may also develop due to overloading or uneven loading of the floor. Sags, dips and weak spots are particularly a problem in modular, manufactured and mobile homes since costs are frequently minimized in these types of construction; therefore, the amount, strength, and quality of the building materials employed are often reduced.
Solid, level, and flat floors are desirable for cosmetic as well as safety reasons. A floor with a localized sag or dip may cause a walker to stumble or fall. A localized weak spot may cause the floor to fail when loaded.
Previous approaches to eliminating floor sag can be divided into preventative approaches and curative approaches. Preventative approaches include using higher quality, and new designs, of building materials. To prevent a sag or dip, a floor should be designed to spread load evenly to the floor joists supporting the floor. Also, the floor joists should be close enough to one another to solidly support the floor. Positioning the floor joists closer to one another lowers the chance of a localized sag or dip. Bracing between floor joists can also be used to improve the distribution of loads. U.S. Pat. No. 2,865,059 to Scriven discloses a metal joist-bridging brace configured to be incorporated during the construction of a floor system. The upper portion of the brace is connected to the top side of the joist and the lower portion of the brace is connected to the underside of the joist; consequently, the braces must be installed before the floor is laid on top of the joists. This brace system cannot be incorporated after a floor system is complete without removing the floor from the joist. This limits the invention to preventative uses only.
Previous curative approaches to fixing localized sags, dips or weak spots that develop after a floor is complete, include hammering in pieces of wood between the joists and positioning jack posts underneath the problem area. These approaches work to eliminate the sag, dip or weak spot, but are time and labor intensive. To fabricate a nail-in wooden support requires woodcutting tools, and some degree of skill. A jack post is simpler to use but can be costly and takes up valuable space in the region below the floor.
There is a need for a simple to use, low cost means to quickly eliminate a localized sag, dip or weak spot in a floor. The present invention provides such a means to eliminate localized sags, dips, and weak spots. It can be added after construction is complete when a problem develops or during original construction to prevent later problems. The device does not require the removal of the floor or the floor covering. As will be described in greater detail hereinbelow, the present invention provides a floor sag eliminator which is affixed to the underside of a floor and connects to adjacent floor joists to provide support to the floor thereby eliminating a localized sag, dip or weak spot.